Autonomous vehicles offer immense promise to help us get closer to these goals. However, the promise of these vehicles isn't a given. They could displace an important workforce and encourage both sprawl and congestion. That’s why we launched an autonomous vehicle testing program.

We want to shape the development of technology and policy to deliver on the potential promise — and not the potential drawbacks.

Contact information

Have questions about autonomous vehicles in Boston? Is your company interested in testing? Contact us at av@boston.gov.

What can be achieved?

Safety. Access. Reliability.

During our Go Boston 2030 planning, these were the values Boston residents told us they wanted for their transportation system to embody.

We can reduce the number of vehicles on our roadways through the adoption of shared fleets of autonomous vehicles. This frees up space for other uses, other travel modes, and creates more predictable travel times.

Self-driving vehicle testing

We are taking a graduated approach to AV testing in Boston.

At first, any company will be constrained in the time, place, and manner of their testing. Before testing on streets, companies must meet — off-street — our important standards, including:

ease of manual takeover from autonomous mode

emergency braking and emergency stop functionality, and

basic driving capabilities, such as staying within a lane.

We’ll only allow testing during good weather and daylight hours in early phases. Once a company reaches certain milestones, we will allow them to begin testing::

in other areas of Boston

at night-time, and

during inclement weather.

Currently, vehicle testing in Boston includes the use of a safety driver focused on roadway activity. There is also a safety engineer monitoring the vehicle's software.

Current AV testing zones

For our initial on-street testing, we will keep it to just a few blocks. These streets are within the City's Flynn Marine Park in the Innovation District. After meeting test plan milestones, partners will expand out of the Marine Park in subsequent phases.

In addition to the testing in the South Boston Waterfront, nuTonomy will begin mapping additional neighborhoods in the City. As of July 2018, nuTonomy has begun high-definition mapping in new areas of the Seaport and South Boston.

Vehicle Testing: Safety Protocols

We believe that safety is paramount in the testing of autonomous vehicles.

The City of Boston and our partners at MassDOT have put together a number of safety checks in the application process and within the administration of the phased testing program.

Companies must provide:

a history of their testing practices

documentation of extensive off-street and previous on-street testing

compliance with federal safety guidelines for autonomous vehicles, and

details of safety driver training procedures.

Our testing partners are collaborative in this effort and often exceed the safety standards put in place.

Current testing partners

The City approved nuTonomy (an Aptiv company) for on-street testing in December 2016. This was expanded to citywide testing in June 2018. NuTonomy is currently testing in the South Boston Waterfront and mapping portions of South Boston.

The City approved Delphi (renamed Aptiv in December 2017) for on-street testing in the Raymond Flynn Marine Park in June 2017. As of June 2018, Aptiv is not actively testing in Boston through the Aptiv brand.

City of Boston's thought partners

We’ll be working closely with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MassPort, and area research institutions. However, we’ve also created two formal partnerships to help us think about what autonomous vehicles could mean for cities:

Transportation For America’s Smart City Collaborative share ideas, data, and best practices with 14 other cities across the country. Our specific area in this collaborative is the autonomous vehicle working group.

The City of Boston is part of the Low-speed Automated Shuttle Working Group. This collection of public officials around the country leads shuttle testing work. The working group is chaired and facilitated by the the team at Volpe. The goal is to share learnings and best practices.